Do treatments improve our skin health? Expert Advice From Dr Vania Sinovich

Our skin inevitably lose some of its elasticity as we age. In the past, the main weapon against wrinkles and sagging skin was to go under a face lift. Today there’s a wealth of less invasive alternatives that can firm up and rejuvenate our skin. Everything from Botox injections to devices that blast light or ultrasound into the skin. Given that healthy skin brings wider health benefits do these treatments rejuvenate from the outside in. Is this just vanity or are you going to help your future self? Well it depends on the type of treatment.

Ageing comes with many transformations but the primary cause of our wrinkles is a reduction in collagen and elastin, proteins that provide firmness and elasticity. Treatments such as injection of botulinum toxin to prevent muscles contracting will do nothing to stop these changes though they can be an effective way to prevent frown lines when injected into certain facial muscles. Likewise injections of gel like substances called dermal fillers beneath the skin can smooth wrinkles and add volume to sagging tissue but don’t address the underlying structural changes and come with risks.

In recent decades a number of laser, radio frequency, ultrasound and intense pulse light devices have been introduced that can ostensibly restore that youthful glow. Developed from treatments to promote wound healing and reduce scarring, these technologies all involve waves of energy penetrating the outer layers of the skin to heat it from within.

If you heat the skin up enough you basically stimulate a kind of wounding response which then encourages the body to produce collagen and elastin to heal the damage.

So you’re playing with the bodies ability to repair itself.

Tiny injuries:

Another therapy, microneedling, in which tiny needles puncture the skin to create micro-injuries, is also based on these wound healing principles. High-quality large-scale studies in this field are lacking but evidence suggests these treatments can boost collagen and elastin levels with noticeable effects on the skin’s s appearance. They need to be regularly repeated and the long-term benefits are unclear. At The Skin company we combine it with exosomes to aid delivery of growth factors and peptides enhancing its effect.

An ideal treatment would also rejuvenate individual skin cells so that they resemble younger versions of themselves, through other changes in their biochemical processes. The most promising results so far come from research led by Anne Lynn Chang at Stanford University, California on the effects of the Sciton broadband light treatment on the skin of women aged over 50. The treatment resulted in demonstrably less wrinkled skin despite no increase in collagen or elastin levels. The researchers reported that rejuvenation was seen at molecular level with a number of genes linked to the ageing process being altered in expression after treatments to more closely resemble young skin hence the name BBL forever young. In other words it reprograms your skin to look younger.

This is why at The Skin Company we have invested in the Sciton BBL Forever Young technology aiming to keeping your individual skin cells resembling younger versions of themselves.

There is less evidence for ‘vampire facials’ which use platelet rich plasma injections. This is where your blood is taken from the arm and spun down to extract components called platelets hopefully rich in fibroplasts ( which are the construction makers of collagen and elastin)  which are injected into your face to supposedly reduce wrinkles. Evidence is still inconclusive. It does however seem to have more evidence for improving the hair thinning in female and male pattern balding although well controlled studies are still needed.